


14. Tear-stained

by titC



Series: Whumptober 2019 [14]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hospital Setting, whumptober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-21 09:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: Jessica accompanies a client to the hospital and finds Matt there.





	14. Tear-stained

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Whumptober](https://whumptober2019.tumblr.com/) for organizing it and [PixelByPixel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/) for the beta!  


Jessica’s not in the mood, but then again she’s never in the mood, so she just drinks and bears it. Her client’s being an entitled pain in the ass in the hospital waiting room, expecting people to cater to her, and Jessica grits her teeth and takes another slug of gin. She’s not even trying to hide it, not when the nurses glare at her and not when her client tries to take her bottle away.

“My booze,” Jessica says. “Hands off.”

“But I want some!”

“Then get yours.”

“But Ms. Jones,” she whines. What a bitch.

But a bitch who pays well, and that’s why Jessica is here to get a doc to write a certificate so that the violent husband can be put away for good. Kara’s a bitch, but _he’s_ an asshole of the worst kind. Jessica knows on what side she’s standing in the bitch vs. asshole trial.

“Mrs. Stanton?”

Kara gathers her things to follow the nurse, but first looks at Jessica. “I’ll just – I’ll get a cab when I’m done, you don't have to stay.”

“You sure?” Jessica isn’t about to insist, but she tries to pretend she cares, at least.

“Yeah, I am. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Fine. Not before 2pm, okay?”

Kara nods and goes in the exam room, and Jessica is finally free.

She manages to get lost in the ER, ends up as far away from the exit as one can manage without ending in an operating room. A couple nuns hurry past her and Jessica wonders how many people die every day in this hospital. She finally finds an Exit sign right as she hears his voice.

“Where is she?”

“Sir, we need you to calm down and let us – ”

“Where is my… she’s… _where is she?_”

Jessica crosses her arms and leans back against the wall. “Jesus Christ, Murdock, what’s happening?”

He jumps; he didn’t even hear her. “Jessica,” he says, turning around.

Well shit, who could make him look like that? “Is it Page?”

He looks confused for a moment, his head to the side. “Karen? Karen’s fine. I think? Wait, do you know something?”

“No, I don’t know – put that phone away, will you?” He does as he’s told, at least. “Why are you here?” Jessica takes his arm and leads him to the chairs a few feet behind her, and the nurse looks grateful that she doesn’t have to deal with him anymore.

“You?” he asks.

_Not an answer, Murdock._ But he’s not yelling right now, so she won’t fuck that up. “Came with a client.”

“Oh.” He sits down heavily, his cane between his knees. He fidgets for a moment then finally rests his forehead on his fists. Jessica looks at his profile, the puffy eyes she can see now she’s not facing his glasses. “I just – she’s in surgery, they said.”

Still no clue as to who the mysterious _she_ is. Girlfriend? Jessica hopes the zombie psycho girlfriend isn’t back from the dead _again_, but she’s not sure she can trust him to have a nice, normal girlfriend either.

He lifts his head, takes his glasses off to rub his eyes. His fingers come away a bit wet, but she doesn’t say anything. The glasses go back on, and he speaks again. “They say they can’t tell me more, that I’m not… but I am, I just can’t prove it. They don’t believe me.”

“I’m a P.I., remember? What do you need me to prove?” Not that she can find his secret marriage certificate or whatever in the next five minutes, but she’s too curious to let this go.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” He shrugs, but doesn’t answer. “Where’s Nelson?” If Murdock’s having some sort of meltdown, he’s one of the few people who could do something about it. Jessica isn't one of them, and she doesn't want to be.

“Home.”

“Want me to call him?” She really doesn’t want to spend the night here; anywhere else would be better than a hospital.

“Can I get some of your booze?” he says instead.

“I don’t have booze.”

“I can smell it.”

“Freak.”

“You always have booze, I don’t even need my nose.”

“Fuck you.” She hands him the bottle anyway, and he doesn’t even pretend to feel for it like a regular blind guy. At least no one’s watching.

“Sister Maggie,” he whispers after taking a slug.

“What?”

“Sister Maggie. I went to St. Agnes but I couldn't find her, and I… They told me they’d called an ambulance, that she was here.”

“You’re friends with a nun?” She rolls her eyes. “Forget I said that, of course you’re friends with a nun.”

“She’s not… it’s complicated.”

“What, you're having a _torrid affair_ with a nun?”

The face he makes is hilarious. “No!”

“Look, you don’t have the best track record on that front.”

“Don’t. Just… don’t.”

Jessica feels like a jerk for at least half a second, then she snatches her booze back and downs some. “She almost got you killed. That sucked. I know she was brainwashed or some shit,” she hurries to say when he opens his mouth. She’s really not in the mood for an ode to the crazy departed. “I _know_. But we thought you were dead because of her and that. Fucking. Sucked.”

He sighs. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“So you’ve said.”

They sit there quietly for a while, the bottle going back and forth between them. She doesn’t wait for him to speak; she’s fine with silence and he’s not her client, not her friend. He’s an acquaintance, at most. She should go home, maybe leave the booze with him; she’s not a total asshole. Well, not always. He speaks again before she’s made up her mind to let him be.

“She helped me, you know. Sister Maggie,” he adds when Jessica makes a questioning sound. “They brought me there afterwards, to St. Agnes. I don’t remember anything about the first few weeks, and then I was…” He shakes his head.

“You had a skyscraper fall on you. You’re lucky you’re alive and walking.”

“Yeah.” His hands are restless over his cane. “I was half-deaf, could hardly stand. Managed to limp around with a cane after a while.”

First time she hears him say anything about it. “Must have sucked.”

“It did.” He smiles a little. “And I was an asshole.”

“You always are, Murdock.”

“Aw.” The smile widens a little, and she realizes that while he’s still fidgeting he’s now way calmer, and his cheeks are dry. “She was… she’s great. She never lets me feel too sorry for myself, you know?”

“You grew up at St. Agnes, right?”

“Yes.”

“Was she…?”

“Yeah, she was there.”

“You’ve known her most of your life, then.”

He barks out something that’s not quite a laugh. “You can say that,” he mutters.

“Huh?”

“She’s, uh.” He pauses, looking… embarrassed? awkward? She’s about to try and wring some more information from him when he raises his head like a hound that’s smelled its prey or, in his case, a wannabe devil smelling his nun. Sort of. “She’s back.” That wasn’t what he’d been about to say earlier, but she lets him have his secrets. For now.

A doctor comes to stand in front of them, a surgical mask still hanging from her neck. “Matthew Murdock?”

“Yes.” Murdock straightens and _almost_ manages to look like he’s not on the verge of crying or screaming or both. He’s gone from hanging on to anxious wreck again in two seconds tops. “How is she? What…?”

“I understand you weren’t told much earlier?”

“No, they said me they’d only speak to family or the Mother Superior from St. Agnes.”

“Well, someone brought the paperwork.” Jessica follows the surgeon’s eyes and sees a couple of nuns a bit further away. One waves, but they don’t come any nearer. That’s strange; they’re like family, right? They live together and everything. And what paperwork, anyway?

“So what is it?” Murdock’s voice is a bit raspy, as if he’s trying to keep his tears and panic at bay. “Is she… will she…?”

“She’s fine. Appendicitis, routine stuff. It didn’t rupture, we caught it early enough; she’ll be out of here in a day or two. We went with laparoscopic surgery; she’ll be back on her feet in no time.”

“She’ll be okay?” Fuck, he sounds like a little kid. Jessica wants to be elsewhere, anywhere; just not here.

“She will, I promise.” The surgeon keeps her tone soothing and calm, and Jessica almost doesn’t catch her next words. “Your mom’s awake now, you can go see her if you’d like. I’ll guide you to her room.”

_Your mom?_

Fuck.

Murdock must have heard her surprise or whatever it is he does, because he turns his head in her direction. “Yeah, she’s, uh. It’s new. I mean, I’ve only known since last year. Um.”

“Only you, Murdock. Don’t know why I’m surprised.”

He stands up and takes the doc’s elbow, a bit too smoothly for a blind man but no one comments. “I… Thanks, Jess.”

She shrugs. “I was bored. At least you’re entertaining.”

He points (mostly) towards her. “Goals, right?”

“Fuck you. And don’t be a stranger, yeah?”

“I won’t. Promise.” His face softens and she wonders, not for the first time, how he can be so hard and so brittle at the same time, so soft and so unyielding. She’s pretty sure she’ll wonder again. Her own face is reflected in his glasses: two red-tinted Jessicas. The right one is badly scratched on the cheek, because of course he can’t see he should change his glasses.

She watches him go into a room a few doors down the corridor, and when she walks past it as she leaves the hospital she sees him with his head on the bed, the nun’s hand – his mother's hand – in his hair. He looks happy. Peaceful.

Well, good for him.

Jessica makes a note to buy more scotch on her way back home; her bottle’s almost empty. _I should bill him_, and she smiles at the thought.


End file.
